TV Review: Sons of Hollywood Pilot Episode

The Sons of Hollywood pilot isn't the most unpleasant thing I've watched this week, but that's only because I saw that video of the British sailors taken prisoner by Iran. The latest in A&E's seemingly endless string of candid reality shows – the first episode airs at 10:00 PM Eastern on Sunday, April 1 – it tries to be a real-life version of Entourage, following around the sons of Aaron Spelling and Rod Stewart (an aspiring actor and musician, respectively) and their young manager as they live the life of Hollywood rich kids. The thing is, the guys on Entourage are actually likable and funny, whereas the Sons of Hollywood are insufferable, spoiled and – in the end – boring.

Indeed, Randy Spelling and Sean Stewart come across as so unlikable that I briefly wondered whether the producers intended the series to be a joke at their expense. (I was only dispelled of this notion when I saw Spelling and Stewart listed as executive producers.) In the first episode, they sleep in late, get chauffeured around Vegas in pink and green Escalades, blow their money at the gaming tables and make asses of themselves in a nightclub. That's pretty much the whole episode. The only time Spelling comes across as remotely sympathetic is when he finds out his father is deathly ill. The others leave him at the hotel and go play golf.

The third Son of Hollywood is David Weintraub, a talent agent, who turns out not to be the son of producer Jerry Weintraub. Weintraub is the only potentially interesting "star" of the show, mainly because he's the only one with a real job. He tries way too hard to be a real-life Ari Gold, but I'd like to see the show forget about the other guys and just follow him around as he makes deals all day. That could be a good reality show.

Except for Intervention, I'm not really a fan of A&E's reality-show lineup, but at least most of their subjects – bounty hunters, tattoo artists, magicians, Gene Simmons – actually seem to lead interesting lives. The Sons of Hollywood, by contrast, makes me miss the old, Bill Kurtis-led A&E network more than ever.